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Adrien Lucca

Adrien Lucca

Biography:

My cup of tea is to make visual experiments with a scientific method. Without knowing in advance how the outcome will look like, I try to invent ways to materialize visual objects formulated in the scientific language of colour theory. With the help of physics and color-management, I follow a methodology where the interaction between colors and light is key.

Over the recent years I sometimes worked entirely by hand (the D65 series), or entirely using a computer and a digital printer (the Colorimetric prints series - the series Maquette being a branch of it). In each case, the methodology is the same: I start by sampling a set of colors (for the hand-made works: a collection of home-made emulsions of high quality pigments, for the digital works a large representative set of colors printed on the same media as the final work). In the second phase I use scientific instruments to measure these colors, and in the third phase I can finally invent geometrical structures where the colors will become the primary elements of some visual objects.

The works presented in TWH gallery are coming from the two series mentioned above. The two drawings from the D65 series (n°2 and n°4), are the results of a deep investigation into the logic of color. Into the countless possible geometric variations and color combinations that lead to equivalent sensations of grey. Each of these took several months of intensive research and manual work to be produced. Between 2011 and 2014, a total of 9 similar works has been made - each addressing different topics.

The prints from the series Maquette are showing a more recent side of my work, in which the taste of analysis that shows up in the D65 series is a bit lighter. While they might look a bit like pictures of stars or of galactic clusters, they are in fact nothing more than computed light sources of various positions, colors and intensity, that project their light on a virtual screen. Or perhaps it is better to say that they are printed images that reproduce visually as exactly as possible mathematical models of such situations.
Unless specified otherwise, the pictures in this series are all unique. They were generated by several layers of algorithms of which the engine is randomness, a sort of randomness that, however, follows strict chromatic and geometric rules.

Text:

The compositions of Adrien Lucca are the results of research based on colour theory. The artist uses a scientific method to analyse and order colours in a way that is similar to how sounds are reordered to compose music. Indeed, both disciplines consist of various different parts that can be dissected and put back together again. Lucca’s studies are not indiscriminate, but comprise a web of formulae, calculations and techniques that imply multiple skills. They are the products of a perpetual process of learning. Instead of working with a single, central thesis, the artist tries to address a concatenation of topics – related to physics and colour theory, the history of painting, photography, and digital art. Up until now, the broad scope of the research has only partially been investigated, and chiefly for economic reasons, meaning that there is plenty of scope for the artist to explore it in greater depth. Often displaying the process-based approach that is characteristic of these analyses, Adrien Lucca’s drawings formally correspond to colour studies. At the same time, the artist experiments with geometric figures and optical illusions that actively involve the viewer. They lead or mislead the eyes and encourage a dance in front of the work, in which the viewer walks back and forth to observe the amalgamation and segregation of coloured lines. A new series of works is entirely generated by computer programmes and a printer. The artist’s touch seems to be reduced to the inputting of formulae. While the result is also largely a surprise to the artist, it is nevertheless the result of his predetermined parameters. In these works too, the process and the research are important, although the final result appears to be more like a finished product.